Urban gardening hippie kooks making dandelion jelly
While my hubby and I feel like pretty normal people, every once in a while (ok, more like once a week) I am reminded that our veggie growin’ – car free – composting – crafty lifestyle isn’t the norm. So for this week, I am tempted to keep my dandelion jam making exploits a secret to anyone outside of my blog/twitter circle. My office reputation already hovers somewhere in the spectrum between hippie and “Earth Mom” and a batch of dandelion jelly is sure to seal my fate as a longterm resident of Crazyville to my coworkers.
When we moved into our house last year, it was pretty clear that the lawn was more weeds than grass. I did my best last year, digging out the dandelions and other weeds and filling yard bags full of the yellow beasties. I got blisters on my hands. It was a lot of work.
{Picking dandelions for the jelly. }
Last week, I noticed that the dandelions had taken our mild winter to rejeuvenate and multiply. So, I pulled out my weeder and started digging them out. I considered being resourceful and using some of the greens in a salad, but my anger towards them resulted in a swift kick of weeds to the green bin. (Hey, they’ve already taken over my yard, they are not going inside and onto a plate!) Over three days, I collected buckets full of dandelions only to wake up the following day to a sea of dandelion children where I had cleared the day before. Suffice to say, this year’s crop of dandelions is robust. Ugh!!
By Sunday evening, I realized that I wasn’t going to win the battle. I waved my white gardening glove and retreated indoors.
After some whining on Twitter, one user mentioned making dandelion jam. Jam! How homespun! How quirky! How TOTALLY UP MY ALLEY. So I found this nice little blog called Craftykin who made a lovely looking batch of jelly from her home’s dandelions. With my mom in town visiting, I decided to put her expertise in canning and jam making to work on a batch of homemade dandelion jelly. She even packed pectin in her carryon just for this project.
{The real question, would it set?}
The first attempt with a half packet of pectin failed. The next day, we reboiled the mixture and added more lemon juice and an entire packet of pectin. It got a bit more jelly-like, but I’d still consider it a jelly fail. Would I try it again with another recipe? (And maybe a more exact measurement of lemon juice?) Of course. I’ll do whatever it takes to take these weeds to the cleaners.
:: Dandelion jam :: (from Craftykin)
2 cups dandelion petals
juice and zest of one lemon
2 cups boiling water
3 cups sugar
1 packet of powdered pectin
Pick off the dandelion petals, avoiding the green bits of the stalk as they are bitter. Steep along with the lemon zest in the boiling water overnight. Strain through muslin cloth to squeeze out as much of the flavour as possible. Discard the zest and petals.
Boil up the dandelion infusion with the lemon juice and sugar, then add the pectin and boil for 10 minutes. Take the pot off the heat and pour into sterilised jars and store in the fridge for up to a month.
15 comments
I was watching River Cottage Spring last night and Hugh and friends made *beer* out of dandelion and burdock root. Maybe another use for the evil things?
My big question in all of this is: how the heck does dandelion jelly taste?
@Jennifer Love Hugh and the River Cottage franchise. Even caught some of Hugh as the "Wild Cook." I'm also curious about what dandelion jelly tastes like.
I've developed an unhealthy taste for red pepper jelly…
LOL. I'm going to share with my husband who is always after the dandelions in our yard. Could you really eat the leaves of the ones that grow in the backyard? I was wondering that the other day. I have a Swiss cookbook with a recipe for dandelion honey, interested?! The supply is endless…
Vero, Don – As for the flavour, honestly, other than the yellow colour I'm not sure the dandelion added much flavour. All I taste is lemon and sugar.
Kim – I think to eat the leaves, you need to pick them before the flowers appear. But yes, totally edible! (and in my case, plentiful)
Wow what a unique idea, sounds lovely…
Sweet! I love that your colleagues think your crazy.
P.S. you might like these local awesome blogs if you don't know about them already…
http://unstuff.blogspot.com/ http://efficiencyexperiments.blogspot.com/
p.s. @green_grrl's dandelion jam (and dandelion fritters, among other wild edible delectables) are delicious!
Laura – I am totally up for trying some dandelion fritters. I'll check my "crop" tonight. Thanks for the links too! Hadn't read those blogs!
Will have to test those greens. Can’t get anything much cheaper than a weed–and a leafy green at that!
I use this recipe for dandelion jam: http://www.dandelionjam.com/page13.html. It's delicious. Leaving the petals in the jam makes a really nice texture.
The recipe mentions wild ginger but using this is not recommended anymore. It can be toxic. I used commercial ginger when I made it. A friend of mine is making dandelion wine this summer. I might try that next!
Awesome – thanks for the link! I think the problem with the recipe I used was not having enough acid (lemon juice) – I went out and bought a reamer so that I could measure exact amounts of juice for future batches.
Ha! I'm like totally an urban, hippy chick making dandelion goodies – in our case jelly.
cool!
By that I meant jello… one day I will not have any typos… sigh.
Rachel can you repost your link..it doesnt work??
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